Kevin Shaw, CSI protests: “I have never endorsed shooting SDR and delivering HDR,” yet his own public statements show him advocating for SDR aesthetics in an HDR container.
The Denial
“I am a huge fan of HDR and my belief is and aways has been that good HDR content requires that it is planned shot and delivered with HDR in mind. I have said that planning and shooting for HDR rarely happens but I have never endorsed shooting SDR and delivering HDR.“ Kevin Shaw, CSI, AVS Forum comment (May 5, 2025)
The Reality
“I’d also like to remind everybody that there is no pressure to hit 1,000 nits or 2,000 nits or 4,000 nits. There’s a resurgence in black and white movie making right now, and the point is that this HDR format is just a container – you don’t have to have vivid colors; you can still go to black and white; you don’t have to go above 100 nits: everything that we created in SDR can still exist on an HDR screen. You’re not obliged to go outside of the limitations of today; if that’s the way that you need to tell your story you can still do that.” Kevin Shaw, CSI, HDR: The Future is Here, Part 7 “Debunk the Myths of HDR,” BIRTV 2024 (Oct. 17, 2024)
“A few years back, a couple of years back, the consensus really was that HDR doesn’t affect anybody: you don’t have to shoot differently, you don’t have to edit differently; it’s really just an extra step in the grading. And I think over the last couple of years, we’ve really learned a lot and we’re still learning, so we’re not there yet, but we’re still learning; but in theory, it doesn’t really change anything but the grading pass.” Kevin Shaw, CSI, Conversation with Thomas Graham, Head of Dolby Vision Content Enablement, Vimeo
After this article was published, Shaw doubled down, writing: “It is perfectly acceptable to deliver scenes or projects at 100 nits or less in an HDR delivery.” LinkedIn comment (Nov. 2025)
These statements, which actively reassure creators they don’t need to change their SDR-based approach, directly contradict his denial.
The False Equivalence
Shaw’s comparison of the decision to shoot black and white to shooting SDR is fundamentally flawed. The decision to use black and white is a powerful artistic tool, not a technical deficit. It strips away the distractions of color to emphasize composition, texture, light, shadow, and an actor’s performance. The lighting and scenic design are different from color films, as the filmmaker is working with a different medium. A black and white film isn’t “missing” color, but interpreting the world through a different, deliberate visual style.
SDR is a technical standard based on the limitations of obsolete display technology (CRTs), capable of representing only a fraction of the dynamic range that modern cameras can capture and HDR displays can show. In short, black and white film is a complete artistic vision, while an SDR image is inherently limiting—a technical compromise that also severely limits expressive possibilities.
Shaw’s framing the decision to ignore HDR’s expanded capabilities as a valid creative preference on par with choosing to shoot B&W suits the gatekeeping narrative: defending the old standard by misrepresenting it as just another stylistic option.
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